medical devices

Open Bionics is a U.K. startup making bionic hands for patients needing prosthetics and co-founder of the company Samantha Payne came onstage today at TechCrunch Disrupt London to tell us about a new deal between Open Bionics and the National Health Service (NHS) to bring new technologies to amputees.
The deal involves a feasibility study with the NHS through SBRI Healthcare to see if… Read More

Just over four years ago, I sat through what still is the most viscerally disturbing information security talk I’ve ever seen. The late Barnaby Jack, a brilliant security researcher, had just demonstrated in front of 300 people how he could wirelessly take control of an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator and cause it to discharge enough electricity to jump a 12 mm spark gap. Read More

The internet of things, and wearables in particular, may not be quite living up to the hype, but it turns out they may be just the thing for people suffering from Parkinson’s disease. A pair of engineering students from the University of Pennsylvania have started their own company to pursue the possibility. Read More

Memphis-based startup Health & Bliss is hoping to save the medical system some time and money by developing a diagnostic solution for strep throat. The company, which graduated from the med-tech accelerator Zero to 510 this year, is now raising a $2 million Series A to conduct the clinical trials that will bring it to market.
While suspected strep throat is one of the most common reasons… Read More

Procured Health, a startup that aims to help hospitals better discover, evaluate and adopt quality medical devices, is today announcing that it has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from a flock of angels and VCs. Investors in the startup’s first round included Zimmerman Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Fidelity Biosciences, NaviMed Capital’s Bijan Salehizadeh, CEO of… Read More

What you see here is the Bionic Handling Assistant, a sort of robotic arm designed to improve the interaction between humans and robots. Clearly this thing was inspired by Doc Ock from Spider-Man, right? There can be no doubt! Look at those articulated arms. Look at those pincers. Look at the sheer menace these things give off! Doc Ock all the way, am I right? Read More

We’ve had some tricorder false alarms over the last couple years, but this one seems to be legit. A multi-institutional task force under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate (take a breath) has created a hand-held tool which can read pulse, body temperature, and respiration from up to 40 feet away. It’s not quite at the level of… Read More

Revolution Medical has just won FDA approval to market their Rev Vac Safety Syringe and Phelobotomy (blood drawing) device. What’s unique about this syringe is its vacuum-like functionality. The needle is retracted directly from the patient into the barrel of the of the syringe. Read More

German and American scientists at the Max Plank Institute have discovered a way to use a magnetic field to assemble parts on lab-on-a-chip devices. This system uses coils that induce magnetic fields on little ferrous particles causing them to arrange themselves into tiny cogs and diamond shapes. The researchers then use the little shapes to move liquids around the chip, a technique they… Read More

Latest Crunch Report

A guitarist for a British band, The Long Blondes, suffered a stroke some time ago and has been unable to use his right, or fretting hand since (he’s a lefty). However, the modern neuroscience has provided him with effective therapy in the form of a crazy-ass mecha-glove (the Saebo-Flex) that holds your hand in a “ready” position, then assists you mechanically when you choose… Read More

Researchers at St. Andrews University in Scotland have created a new technique for delivering drugs to individual cells which is essentially an incredibly precise laser fired from a fiber the width of a human hair. Despite this rather inflammatory article at the Daily Mail saying it will be used to cure cancer, the real applications are very specific and very practical — as is often… Read More

Here’s a great idea for a wearable convergence device. It’s a knee brace that generates enough electricity to power smaller gadgets like cell phones, MP3 players, portable GPS systems, and even “a motorized prosthetic joint or an implanted neurotransmitter,” according to the PhysOrg.com web site.
The brace was developed by the University of Michigan and “works… Read More